bostonbubble.com

[StallionMang]

Seems like $/SF might be a good indictator of where things are going. I look at it as a shorthand indicator of value - though of course there are lots of other factors.

Is anyone tracking this, or know of sites which do?

[SmChady]

I too would love to see this, but, unless you get a lot of data for a concentrated area, its hard to draw any conclusions.

A small data set would be all over the place as tiny studios sometimes sell for very high $/sq ft, luxury condo's sell also high, and then you have the dumps that sell below market. Plus, the suburbs sell much larger homes for the same price as a smaller place in the city.

Since it would all be averaged, the change in the average selling price is still the same measure of change. If you want this data, just divide the selling price vs time graph by the average square foot of a home, and you'd get a new number. I have no idea what the average is however and it might be something not tracked. Plus, urban/suburban homes vary considerably in size, so you'd need very local data.

What I am doing is looking at other sales in the nearby area (same street if possible) and finding out what the price/sq ft is and then comparing it to the value of the condo. I also look at what it would cost me to fix up a place $50-$100/sq ft to see if its worth buying and rehabbing. I have yet to find a place myself - everywhere I look has problems and the sellers are asking too much and not moving. Some of the places I was interested in went off the market and are just sitting there, or the owner decides to rent out the unit.

[admin]

This Globe blog entry makes it sound like Radar Logic offers price per square foot data: http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/blogs/renow/2008/05/sales_data_what.html I haven't had a chance to look into it in depth but figured I would pass it along.

- admin

[Guest]

Thanks admin, I went to the RadarLogic site. They have some great stuff.

Few things of note:
- Season impacts both volume AND P/SF. Peak=Aug, Valley=Feb. It looks like a 10% discount in Feb. This is like the old advice to buy car @end of month. I would not have expected this, but it's clear as day!!
- Volume doubles in Aug vs. Feb
- Looking at the CSV, P/SF was at 200 in 2002.. so the values are improving.



They have a free CSV available at http://analytics.radarlogic.com/radar-logic-home/historical-data.aspx- Data Tables. The latest data for BOS here is 1/29/08. Presumably subscribers get the latest data.[/list]